♦
Hamish drove down to the Sea View boarding house and asked Mrs. Dunne if Mrs. Fleming was in.
“She is that,” said Mrs. Dunne, “but she’s up in her room, and no gentlemen are allowed to visit ladies in their rooms. This is a respectable house.”
“Chust tell her I’m here,” said Hamish crossly, “and ask her to come down.”
Mrs. Fleming came into the lounge, looking tired and sulky. “Whit now?” she demanded.
Hamish took out his notebook. “Sit down,” he commanded. “Full name.”
“Dora Fleming. Whit…?”
“Maiden name.”
“Harris.”
Hamish sat down opposite her. “Where are your children?”
“With ma mither.”
“And what brought you to Lochdubh?”
“I thocht it was time Jock was paying a bit mair.”
“Right, now let’s get to it. On the evening Effie Garrard disappeared, you were seen calling at her cottage.”
“I never did!”
“Don’t lie. You were seen. What did you talk about?”
She picked nervously at her nail varnish. “I telt her to stop bothering Jock. I told her she was right daft, making up all them stories.”
“And what did she say to that?”
“She hadn’t let me in. She slammed the door in my face.”
The extreme Glasgow accent was leaving her voice. Did she speak in a coarse voice because of a sort of inverted snobbery? wondered Hamish.
“And that was all that happened?”
“Swear to God.”
“So why did you say nothing of this to the police?”
“I was feart they would suspect me. I thought it was murder at first, see, but when I heard it was the suicide, it was too late and the police werenae interested anyway.”
“If you can think of anything eke, let me know,” said Hamish.
“So she was murdered?”
“Just making enquiries.”
Now for Jock, thought Hamish.
∨ Death of a Dreamer ∧
6
He had by nature a tarnishing eye that cast discolouration.
—George Meredith
Bessie Jamieson, the maid at the hotel who had served Hal and Hamish coffee, had stood a little way away from them, listening to every word. She told the hotel porter, Sammy, that Hamish had been trying to find out what Hal had written in his notebook. Sammy told his mother that Hal was some sort of government spy and he was taking notes of what everyone said or did. The gossip flew around Lochdubh.
“Disgraceful,” said Nessie Currie to Mrs. Wellington. “He should be stopped.”
“You can’t stop a man taking notes,” said Mrs. Wellington. “There’s probably an innocent explanation. Ask Hamish Macbeth.”
But Hamish was not at the police station. He had asked to see Jock at Sea View after he had finished interviewing Dora Fleming, but was told by Mrs. Dunne that Jock had moved to the Tommel Castle Hotel, where he was painting a portrait of Miss Halburton-Smythe.
Hamish had a sudden jealous wish that Jock would turn out to be a murderer. At the hotel, he was told by the manager that Jock had been given an empty room at the top of the hotel as a temporary studio.
He rapidly mounted the stairs. A lift had not yet been installed in the hotel, although one was scheduled. He had an awful dread that he would find Priscilla posing naked.
But when he opened the door, it was to find the room deserted. An easel was set up with a cloth over it.
He peered under the cloth. There was a preliminary sketch of Priscilla with all her clothes on.
Hamish ran down the stairs again to find Jock walking into the hotel.
“A word with you,” said Hamish grimly.
“All right,” said Jock amiably. They walked into the lounge.
Bessie, the maid, saw them and ran to the kitchen to get coffee and biscuits to serve to them in the hope of hearing some more gossip.
“You were seen at Effie’s cottage the evening she disappeared,” began Hamish.
“I told you that.”
“What you didn’t tell me was that you had a shouting, screaming row.”
“Who told you that?”
“Never mind.”
“You know,” said Jock, “in the city, no one ever knows what you’re doing, but up here you can be walking across deserted moorland with not a soul in sight and in the evening someone will say they saw you and did you have a good walk?”
“So what really happened?”
Bessie hurried in with a tray of coffee and biscuits and set it on the table in front of them. She retreated to a corner of the lounge and stood expectantly.
“That’ll be all, Bessie,” said Hamish. “Thank you for the coffee. We’ll ring if we need you.”
Bessie reluctantly went out. Hamish rose and closed the door behind her, then came back to join Jock.
“When I thought it might be murder,” said Jock, “I knew it would look bad for me if I’d said we had a blazing row. Truth is she gave me a fair scunner, begging and pleading and trying to kiss me. Truth is I shouted at her that if she came near me again, I would kill her. I said she was mad. But I didn’t kill her.”
“I’ll tell you this,” said Hamish, “but keep it to yourself for the moment. Later that evening, someone left a note for her with a bottle of wine supposed to have come from you and asking her to meet you at Geordie’s Cleft. Now, if you were so harsh with her, and mad as she was, what on earth would make her think you would want to see her?”
Jock hung his head.
“Come on, man,” snapped Hamish. “Out with it!”
“When I got back,” said Jock, “I began to feel right sorry for her. I admired her work. Good artists are rare, and we’re all a bit mad. So I phoned her. She’d given me her mobile number a while ago. I thought she needed help, therapy of some sort. I told her I was sorry I had been harsh and we’d meet to talk things over. I said I wouldn’t be around the following day because I planned to go up to Geordie’s Cleft.”
“And what did she say?”
“Her phone was switched off, so I left a message.”
“So that’s why she believed the note.”
“Is there any hope it might have been suicide?”
“I really don’t think so,” said Hamish.
“I mean, maybe when I didn’t turn up, she decided to take her own life.”
“That would mean she would need to have carried antifreeze up the mountain with her. The antifreeze was in the wine bottle. There must have been something in that note to tell her to go ahead and take a drink before you arrived. She would have one and, as time dragged on, maybe another. Why did you and Dora get divorced?”
“The usual story. Married in a rush and then found out it was a mistake. But when the kids came along, I tried to stick it out. But things got worse and worse. Dora would never leave me alone when I was working. If I had an exhibition, she’d turn up and make a scene. I found out she had been having an affair behind my back. I said if she didn’t settle for an amicable divorce, it would all come out in court and the children would be taken away from her.”
“So what’s she doing up here? Money?”
“No, she likes haunting me. I don’t know how she found out I was up here. Don’t worry. She’ll soon get tired of the game.”
“You’re painting a portrait of Miss Halburton-Smythe.”
“Trying to. She’s a beautiful woman.” Jock looked sharply at Hamish. “And that’s all she is to me – a subject to paint.”
Hamish eyed him cynically. “I thought you artists were always looking for interesting faces, craggy faces, things like that.”
“Usually. But there’s a remoteness about her which goes along with this landscape that I would like to capture. Oh, here’s Betty.”